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Mistrustful of mainstream Egyptian media, new President Mohammed Morsi is instead going to communicate with the Egyptian public through a weekly interview program on a special YouTube channel and via a call-in TV show, Arab media reported Sunday.

The YouTube channel, titled “the Egyptian presidency – the official page,” was created on Saturday, August 4 and had garnered 13,500 subscribers by Sunday. The first video clips uploaded to the channel feature profiles of the new ministers in the cabinet of Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, sworn in last week.

“This is a new trend through which the presidency strives to communicate with the general public,” Yasser Ali, the president’s spokesman, told Egypt’s Al-Wafd daily. “The presidency has found a new way to reach the public and present its news to it.”

Ali said that the president’s office intends to employ a wide range of social media channels in the coming days to convey its messages to the public.

A member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party complained to the establishment daily Al-Ahram on July 29 that Morsi was the subject of unfair media coverage during his meetings with foreign officials. Hassan Barnas told the daily that the biased reporting caused Egyptians to lose faith in mainstream media.

The new TV program, to be aired on official Egyptian television following the month of Ramadan, will be called “dialogue in the president’s office” and will allow the general public to call in and ask president Morsi questions, London-based newspaper A-Sharq Al-Awsat reported Sunday.

Morsi took part in a call-in radio program during Ramadan called “The people ask and the president answers.”